Dabney v. Montgomery Ward & Co., Inc., 82-1062

• Decision Date: 19 October 1982
• Docket Number: No. 82-1062,82-1062
• Citation: 692 F.2d 49
• Parties: Marjorie Louise DABNEY, Appellee, v. MONTGOMERY WARD & CO., INC., Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 49

692 F.2d 49

Marjorie Louise DABNEY, Appellee, v. MONTGOMERY WARD & CO., INC., Appellant.

No. 82-1062.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted June 18, 1982.

Decided Aug. 18, 1982.

As Modified Sept. 9, 1982.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Oct. 19, 1982.

Bruce J. Schulte, Dailey, Ruther, Bauer, Schulte & Hahn, Burlington, Iowa, for appellee.

Michael W. Liebbe, Celeste F. Bremer, Raben, Liebbe, Shinkle & Bremer, Davenport, Iowa, Kent A. Simmons, Iowa City, Iowa, for appellant.

Before HEANEY and ARNOLD, Circuit Judges, and REGAN ^*, Senior District Judge.

REGAN, Senior District Judge.

In this product liability case plaintiff recovered a judgment of $1,000,000 plus pre-judgment interest for damages she sustained as the result of serious burn injuries caused by a fire in her rented duplex apartment on October 15, 1977. Defendant appeals from the denial of its post-judgment motions. We reverse and remand.

The principal issue on appeal is whether the district court ¹ abused its discretion by denying defendant's motion for a new trial based on the ground the Court had erred in refusing leave to defendant to produce a witness who had not been listed but whose existence and relevant testimony first came to defendant's knowledge two hours before leave was requested on the morning the trial had been scheduled to commence.

It was plaintiff's trial theory ² that a space heater sold by Montgomery Ward to the owner of the duplex, and which had been installed in 1964 (some thirteen years earlier) in the wall between the kitchen and living room for heating the small one bedroom apartment was defectively designed, in that the flame at the burner "licked" out into the outer chamber of the heater instead of being confined inside the heat exchangers, with the result, in the opinion of plaintiff's experts, that the flames had ignited small dust or lint particles which were then carried by air currents to the "point of origin" of the fire.

Defendant contended that the more likely cause of the fire was a lighted cigarette dropped by plaintiff at or before the time she fell asleep on the living room couch under the influence of alcohol. The testimony which defendant was precluded from adducing was probative of this theory.

Plaintiff had moved into the apartment in February, 1975. She had had no problems with the space heater prior to the fire. For that matter there is no evidence of any problem with the space heater which had been experienced by anyone from the date of its 1964 installation to the time plaintiff's expert witnesses examined it in 1980.

This suit was filed October 12, 1979, just three days before limitations would have run. So far as appears from the record, this was the first notice Montgomery Ward had of the fire or of plaintiff's claim that its space heater installed in 1964 had caused the 1977 fire. Under the circumstances, the difficulties which confronted defendant in investigating plaintiff's responsibility for the fire two or more years after the event are manifest.

Basically, defendant had little more than the reports of the Fire Marshall and other members of the fire department which concluded that the cause of the fire was "probably" or "possibly" smoking. And clearly, the physical evidence as seen and examined by the fire department personnel, was consistent with the finding of a fire caused by careless smoking. Also supportive of this theory was evidence that plaintiff was a cigarette smoker, that unlighted cigarettes were found on the living room furniture, and that when plaintiff was examined in the hospital's emergency room there was an odor of alcohol on her breath.

Plaintiff testified unequivocally that she had worked for several months six days a week as the full time day bartender at a neighborhood tavern (North Hill Tap) owned by her steady "date" Jack Mercer (who did not testify); that on October 15 1977, just as on the other days of the week she had worked from 7 A.M. to at least 6 P.M.; that she never drank while at work, but that after her October 15th work day was over and before leaving the tavern she drank one beer in the company of her employer-friend, following which an unnamed couple, customers in the tavern, who were on their way out of town going in her direction, drove her home (she had missed the bus); that she had heard that the male of the couple, an itinerant construction worker, had since passed away, and that his wife was a complete stranger whom plaintiff had never seen before (and inferentially, since) that day; that after taking care of her dog's needs, she drank one other beer and smoked a cigarette in the kitchen, and then spoke on the telephone to her daughter and mother; that by that time she was utterly exhausted by her long working hours, so she put on her nightgown, eschewing her bed, and laid down on her living room sofa and promptly fell asleep. Plaintiff specifically denied ever smoking in the living room except on very rare occasions, of which the evening of October 15, 1977 was not one.

With respect to the occurrence itself, plaintiff testified that while half asleep she heard a loud noise and, without knowing why, she groped her way first to the front door, which she could not open, and then to the clothes closet (where she was later found by the firemen). She disclaimed any knowledge of flames, heat or smoke in the living room or that a fire had been or was in progress, ³ and testified that she didn't even realize she had been burned about her face and body, although she experienced pain in her hands.

The evidence which defendant sought to adduce through Ms. Gerry Ballard, the newly discovered witness, was clearly relevant (as the magistrate held), not only as circumstantial evidence supportive of defendant's theory, but also as tending in several important respects to refute plaintiff's testimony. Thus, Ms. Ballard placed plaintiff at about 4:30 p. m. in another tavern (Hilltop Inn) where Ms. Ballard was a bartender, this being more than an hour and a half before plaintiff testified that she had left her place of employment. So, too, Ms. Ballard asserted that plaintiff was then in an intoxicated condition, so much so that while smoking, plaintiff was unable to consistently "hit" the ashtray with the ashes from her cigarettes, with the result that Ms. Ballard was compelled to repeatedly wipe up the area in front of plaintiff's seat. And finally, according to Ms. Ballard, a Mr. and Mrs. Carl Bono, regular patrons of Hilltop Inn, with whom plaintiff was conversing, introduced Ms. Ballard to plaintiff on the occasion in question, and it was the Bonos who left the tavern with plaintiff. On the following day, Ms. Ballard became aware that plaintiff (whom she had never previously met) had been injured in the fire.

In our consideration of this appeal we start with the premise that "a district court may exclude from evidence at trial any matter which was not properly disclosed in compliance with the Court's pre-trial order, and such a ruling will be reversed on appeal only for abuse of discretion." Iowa-Mo. Enterprises, Inc. v. Avren, 639 F.2d 443, 447 (8 Cir. 1981); Admiral Theatre Corp. v. Douglas Theatre Co., 585 F.2d 877, 897-98, (8 Cir. 1978). In the usual situation in which the district court was held not to have abused its...